


The Legend's Obsession

by livwrites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: HPFT, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6480184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livwrites/pseuds/livwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter is a famous movie star. Romilda Vane is a hardworking fan. When they meet, everything goes south.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in a little while surely you'll be mine

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this chapter is taken from the song "In a Little While" by U2.

Romilda Vane flicked on the light in her tiny flat and set her purse down on the kitchen table. Sighing, she stared at her tiny living space - one bedroom, one bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and an even smaller living room - before going to get the mail.  
  
Junk, junk, junk, credit card bill, junk, and information about a contest to meet Harry Potter. Romilda opened the envelope eagerly.  
  
"Meet Harry Potter," she read under her breath.  
  
Harry Potter was a famous movie star who was known around the world for playing an orphan in a series of movies about his fight against an evil sorcerer. Romilda had faithfully followed every movie. She had all of the merchandise from the movies, including a replica of the wand that his character, Ron Weasley, had used.  
  
For some reason unknown to her, Romilda kept the fact that she was a fan secret from everybody else. She had often thought about telling everyone how much she liked Harry Potter - indeed, sometimes she used the word love interchangeably - but thought the better of it every time. It wasn't that none of her friends hated him, since during lunch at work they always talked positively about him, said they liked his movies, and agreed that they thought he was a good-looking man, but they weren't as into him as she was.  
  
Romilda pulled out the opening letter and began to read it slowly, not wanting to miss any important detail. Anyone who wanted to meet Harry Potter had to send in a personal essay explaining just how much of a fan of his they were. It sounded a little weird to Romilda and part of her brain questioned this contest, but she pushed the thought aside as she drew out a form.  
  
"What's this?" she asked no one in particular.  
  
At the top of the form was a proclamation: Harry Potter wanted to meet The One, and was particularly keen to find someone who shared interests with him. Romilda filled out the form, took the rest of the paperwork out of the envelope, and set it all on the counter beside the coffeemaker. She would think about it more tomorrow.  
  
*  
  
In the morning, Romilda impatiently hit the snooze button on her alarm clock when it went off, rolled over, and went back to bed. When it went off again five minutes later she groaned, flung the covers off of herself, and went to take a shower.  
  
Half an hour later, dressed in her work clothes - dress pants and a somewhat low-cut blouse - with her hair wrapped in her towel (the hair dryer was broken and she hadn't been able to buy a new one yet), Romilda walked into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast. She put two pieces of toast in the toaster, grabbed the handle of the coffee pot, and remembered the contest forms that were sitting a meter from her right hand.  
  
After she ate her breakfast she put them carefully in a folder and added the folder to her bag. Locking the door to her flat - not that she had anything worth taking anyways, except for her laptop - she left to go to work. The whole hour-long commute there, stuck on the overcrowded bus with crying babies and disgruntled mothers and sweaty athletes, she thought of the contest.  
  
The clothing store that Romilda worked at was in the middle of the spectrum. People that came to shop there were moderately well off, not rich, but not as poor as Romilda was, either. But what exactly were you supposed to do if you hadn't gone to university?  
  
As usual, Romilda stayed on cash the whole morning, talking pleasantly with young mothers trying to do their shopping before their kids had a meltdown, lightly flirting with guys that came in needing polo shirts for golfing or dress pants for work or whatever.  
  
When her lunch came, Romilda put up the "Find Another Cash" sign and went into the lunch room.  
  
"Hello, Parvati," she said amiably.  
  
Parvati Patil looked up from the newspaper she had been reading and smiled. "Afternoon, Romilda." She gestured at a mess on the counter. "Don't bother microwaving anything - Ernie exploded his popcorn again."  
  
"Again?!" Romilda said, exasperated. She grabbed her bag from her locker and took her lunch - a ham sandwich - and the folder with the contest forms out of it.  
  
"What's that?" Parvati said, interested.  
  
"Forms for a contest," Romilda explained, showing them to her. "It's to meet Harry Potter."  
  
Parvati leaned back and smiled. "Oh, right, you like him."  
  
"Yeah, I do," Romilda admitted. "And he says he's looking for The One. It's not like I'm going to find a guy anywhere else."  
  
"Don't say that!" Parvati said. "Romilda, you just haven't found the right guy yet. Once you find him, you'll be all set."  
  
"Parvati, I'm 29," Romilda said despondently. "I don't know if I'm going to find the right guy. But Harry Potter could just be it," she added with a smile.  
  
"I only met Neville - my boyfriend - when I was 32," Parvati said. "You might just have to wait. I only know a few people from my university class who had married when they were your age."  
  
"Sure," Romilda said, and started organizing ideas for this personal essay that the contest called for. "Once I finish writing this, I only have to submit it and then wait two weeks to find out who wins."  
  
"Good luck," Parvati said.  
  
"Thanks," Romilda replied, smiling up at the older woman as she left the lunch room to go back to work.  
  
By the end of her lunch break, Romilda had finished most of her essay. She decided that it would probably be better to emphasize how much she and Harry had in common: their love of sports, for example, instead of telling him all about how much she loved him and thought he was cute. That would be more likely to frighten him off instead of encourage him.  
  
At night, she finished her essay, and decided to wait and read it over in the morning - she had the next day off - before sending it in.  
  
Romilda didn't end up getting up in the morning; rather, when she crawled out of bed her alarm read 1:52pm. She went into the kitchen, unshowered and still in her pyjamas, made herself a small bowl of cereal, and proofread her essay before putting it in an envelope, sticking a stamp on it, and taking it outside to mail it.  
  
When she came back in she started to wash the dishes and thought to herself, _Two weeks. All I have to do is wait through two weeks._


	2. feel the fire where she walks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song "Lola Montez" by the band Volbeat.

Romilda spent the two weeks that the contest was taking to judge waiting impatiently. She hated this having to wait and find out results, without being able to do anything to influence them. If she had been able to go to the office holding the contest, or to Harry himself, and find out the results, or at least try to influence them, she would have been happier. But instead she had to sit tight and wait.

So she tried to make the most of the time. She cleaned her flat again and again, debating with herself just how much of her Ron Weasley posters she should leave up. More, she thought, would make her look like she was an overly obsessive stalkery fangirl. A part of her was, but Harry wouldn't need to see that side, if she won. No, she decided, one was enough. She took all the posters down except the promotional poster for the final movie.

The fourteenth day, the last day that she had to wait, she opened her laptop and checked her email hopefully. There were three unread emails in her inbox. The first was from her mother and wanted to know when they could meet and talk. _No_ , Romilda thought sourly, marking the email as spam. Her mother hadn't helped her at all since high school. Why should she start now?

The second email was from her fanfiction website: the latest chapter of her Ron Weasley/Minerva McGonagall fic had a new review. Romilda enjoyed writing stories with pairings that wouldn't normally have happened in the movies they had been inspired by. Ron/Minerva was her favourite, and a particularly divisive ship in the Ron Weasley fandom, as Ron and Minerva had hated each other throughout their years at Smeltings. She was his main rival and they had never got along.

The third email was from the contest coordinator. The title of the email was "You are the contest winner". Excited, Romilda clicked open and read its contents eagerly. Then, once it had finally registered in her brain, she got up and danced around her room.

_I'm going to meet Harry Potter_ , she thought excitedly.

Quickly, she emailed the coordinator back, as if she were afraid that waiting would award someone else the right to meet her hero. In her email, she accepted winning, and asked to arrange a time and a place to meet Mr. Potter. Making sure that she sounded calm and stoic in her email, she sent it off.

She didn't go into work that day: she had the day off, an intentional arrangement on her part. When she had found out about the contest, she had booked it off; if she won she could celebrate by doing something nice (instead of folding shirts); if she lost she could take the day off and grieve.

After that, she went shopping. She couldn't usually buy much at once - since she was living paycheck to paycheck she didn't have the money to - but she wanted to treat herself to something special in celebration of winning.

She bought herself a box of chocolates at the grocery store, then went home and put her bag of groceries - a small carton of milk, a little packet of cheese, a package of sausages, and a loaf of bread - away.

With the rest of the day off, and it only being lunchtime, she didn't really have a whole lot to do. She made herself lunch - a cheese sandwich - and sat down at her laptop, opening it and logging into her fanfiction site.

Romilda kept the fact that she wrote fanfiction to herself. People looked down on it, for some reason, as though it wasn't real writing. Personally, she thought that just because characters were borrowed didn't invalidate her writing or anyone else's.

She was looking at the discussion forums when a thought struck her. Romilda realized that Harry would probably be very freaked out, or at the very least slightly disturbed, by the fact that she was writing fanfiction about him. Indeed, some of it was actually about him; she had written some fanfiction about Ron Weasley in the movie universe, and she had written some fanfiction about Harry himself, in the actual world. She would, he decided, not need to know about that at all. She saved all her writing to a backup CD, hid the backup CD in the bottom of one of her dresser drawers, and decided that she didn't to write fanfiction anymore.

By the end of the day she had a reply back from the contest coordinator: she was going to finally meet Harry on Saturday, at a small cafe on the outskirts of London.

The rest of the week seemed to drag on and on. When Saturday finally came, Romilda couldn't for the life of her figure out what to wear. Normally when she was off she wore jean and a hoodie, because it was comfortable, but she didn't think that Harry would like that choice of apparel very much. Instead, she opted for a pair of tight-fitting black slacks and a sleeveless red blouse with a very low neckline.

The cafe was small, just like the email had said. It was warm and inviting as well, which Romilda liked. She had arrived half an hour before the coordinator had said Harry would be there, just in case. With not much else to do, she bought herself a cappuccino and plopped down at a table, pulling a book out of her purse to read while she waited.

About half an hour later, she had finished her first cappuccino and was halfway through her second, having also bought herself a doughnut. Romilda finished her doughnut and stood up to put the paper plate in the garbage can when she noticed a man standing at the door.

Harry Potter.  


	3. see the stone set in your eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a lyric from the song "With or Without You" by U2.

"Hi," Romilda breathed as Harry approached her table. He was, she thought, even more good-looking in person.

"How are you?" Harry asked. He also, to her relief, appeared somewhat nervous.

"Good," Romilda answered. "How are you?" She cursed herself. This was, it seemed to her, a textbook example of a bad conversation, and definitely not how she'd like to start things off with Harry Potter.

"Do you want to go somewhere a little more private?" Harry asked, looking around. Other people in the café, seeing Harry, were staring at him and at Romilda.

"Yes, lets," Romilda answered, even though she wanted to stay and enjoy the attention. Nevertheless, she followed him out of the café, throwing her plate in the garbage as she went.

As they left the café Romilda caught sight of a line of photographers snapping away, presumably for either the tabloids or the Internet. Unconsciously, she stepped to the side so that she was beside Harry, in order to be more visible. She hoped that the photographers would notice her and take pictures. Those pictures would, she knew, be plastered all over the papers, and Romilda would become known as the famous Harry Potter's girlfriend.

They reached the curb, where Harry had parked his car, a Porsche. They got in and pulled away from the curb. Leaning back and looking around at the luxurious car she was sitting in, Romilda thought that she could get used to this. She could get used to the attention that came from being seen with Harry Potter. And she could most definitely get used to not having to spend her whole day placating and dealing with foul-tempered customers all day.

She definitely wouldn't miss work.

Eventually they pulled up to Harry's mansion, which she already knew about. As they walked up the driveway, Harry asked, "What do you want for dinner?"

"What do you have?" Romilda replied.

Harry smiled wryly. "Um, is pizza okay? I don't really know how to cook."

"Pizza is good," Romilda answered. "What kind is it?"

"Mushroom, I think," he said. As they went to the kitchen, he opened the fridge door and pulled out a box. "Nope, I was wrong," he said, "it's pepperoni."

As they walked to the living room Harry grabbed the television remote from the coffee table. "Is there anything you want to watch?" he asked.

Romilda paused as she sat down on the couch. "The Jaws of Love?" she suggested. It was her favourite movie, and one she knew that Harry liked as well.

Harry grinned. "Okay," he said, "I love that movie." He found it on the shelf, put it in the DVD player, and sat down beside her, draping his arm around her shoulder.

Romilda felt very happy.

*

Romilda sat in the kitchen of Harry's house - of her house, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time - and sipped a coffee thoughtfully.

She'd been dating Harry for two months now, and she had thoroughly adapted herself to life with him. She enjoyed the life: not having to choose between paying rent and eating, being able to drive where she needed to go instead of having to take public transit, and being able to buy something she wanted without having to worry about whether her debit card would be rejected at the checkout.

And yet... something nagged in the back of Romilda's mind. There were days when she thought that she was merely dating Harry because she liked his fame and the stability his money brought. She liked being around him and spending time with him, to be sure. But she also thought there was something lacking, a spark of some kind. Comparing her relationship with Harry to the feelings she had had for other men, Romilda realized that she wasn't romantically attracted to her boyfriend.

Was Harry good-looking? Yes. Of course he was. Was she in love with him? No. She realized that, for all the hype about the True Love contest and how she had won, she only liked Harry platonically.

Looking at herself, Romilda realized how much she had changed herself for Harry as well. She no longer wrote anything, original or not, and hadn't logged into her fanfiction account or the discussion forum for the duration of her relationship. She really missed the friends she had made on the site and regretted leaving.

Finishing her coffee, Romilda stared out the window moodily. Harry would be home from shooting his current film in an hour, and she knew what she needed to say to him when he arrived.


	4. if you twist and turn away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is from the song "Bad" by U2.

Harry got home an hour and a half later, hanging his coat up on the rack and walking into the kitchen where Romilda was sitting.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, "I was held up by people who wanted autographs, and I didn't feel like I could just leave them hanging." He stared at her curiously. "Are you okay, Romilda? You look weird."

"Harry," Romilda said, not answering the question, "I think we need to talk."

"Okay," Harry replied, sitting down at a barstool. "About what?"

"Us." Romilda fiddled with a pen that was on the counter. "Our relationship, more specifically."

Harry said nothing but simply sat there.

"I don't think we're working out," Romilda said, "to put it bluntly."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Romilda sighed. "I don't think-" she paused for a second and then added, "I don't think that our relationship has the same spark that I've had with other men. I don't know how else to explain it."

Harry said, "So we're just friends, then."

"Yes," Romilda said cautiously, hearing his neutral tone of voice and wondering what that meant. Was he angry? Was he sad? She didn't know.

Harry sighed. "That's kind of what I was afraid of," he said, "when the idea of the contest happened. My manager came up with it. She thought it would be a good idea to generate publicity." He snorted derisively. "I didn't want to do it initially; I didn't want to meet someone who would only be attracted to me for my fame and money..." He trailed off and looked at her, embarrassed. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Romilda replied. "Keep going." She waved for him to continue.

"I wanted to find love on my own terms," Harry said, "not one set by my manager. I thought that anyone who won the contest would be attracted to superficial things, like money and fame, and not to me."

"You were afraid that you were going to be taken advantage of," Romilda said softly, feeling guilty. Over the course of their three month relationship, she had pretty much done just that: using his money to buy things she wanted, quitting her job and moving in, and driving his expensive cars around, revelling in the fact that he had cars.

"Yes," Harry said. "I don't think you did that, but..." He trailed off. "I was certain that any relationship that came out of that contest wouldn't last, but I think I deliberately put blinders over my eyes about that and just dove headfirst in. It wasn't healthy."

"It wasn't healthy on my part either," Romilda admitted. "I changed myself too much for you. I tried to make myself into the woman I thought you wanted instead of just accepting that either you'd like me for who I was or you wouldn't like me at all." She stared out the window. "I haven't written a word in three months. I miss it."

"You write?" Harry asked, surprised.

"I did," Romilda said. "I stopped writing when I met you. It was part of changing myself."

"What did you write?" Harry asked, curious.

"Fanfiction, mostly," Romilda admitted. "I thought you would find it a bit weird. Mostly about Ron Weasley."

Harry shrugged. "There's nothing weird about that," he said.

"If only I had known that three months ago," Romilda joked ruefully. "Oh well, too late for that now," she added hastily, seeing Harry's expression; he hadn't seen her comment for the joke that it was.

"So," Harry said slowly, "do you think we could still be friends, even if we're not dating?"

"Of course," Romilda said. "So," she added, "are we going to have to come up with some reason for why we're going our separate ways?"

"But we're not going our separate ways," Harry protested, and then stopped. "Oh. Right. Tabloids." He rolled his eyes. "We won't say anything. They don't need to know anything. Serves them right for making money off of snooping into people's lives."

"Even if they insist?" Romilda asked.

"Even if they insist," Harry confirmed. "Or I suppose, if you absolutely have to, you could cite 'irreconcilable differences'. That's what everyone says, and it could mean absolutely everything."

"Well," Romilda sighed, "That went a lot better than I expected it would."

Harry's eyes narrowed slightly. "How were you expecting this to go?"

Romilda hesitated. "I don't know exactly, but not good. My last boyfriend tried to attack me when I broke up with him. He was an asshole."

"He tried to attack you?" Harry's eyes were wide.

"Yep," Romilda said. "Then he was arrested by the police. He was acquitted of the charge, by the way; his lawyer argued that he was provoked into a rage. Apparently 'I don't want to date you anymore because you've cheated on me too many times to count' is a legally acceptable example of provocation." She shook her head angrily.

"Wow." Harry's voice was soft. "I just... there are no words."

"You got that right," Romilda answered. She broke the ensuing silence by staring around the kitchen and then saying, "So... what do you want for dinner? Pizza? Indian food? Chinese? Mexican?"

Harry shrugged. "Let's eat out. Indian?" he suggested.

"Works for me." Romilda stood up and retrieved her purse. "Where do you want to go?" she asked. "Do you know any good Indian places near here?"

Harry grabbed his car keys - or, more accurately, one of his car keys - from a bowl where he kept them. "Well, it's not exactly near here," he said, "but I know a really good place, about an hour from here. It's run by a woman named Padma Patil. I went to elementary school with her. I drop in every now and then for a meal, and it's just as amazing every time."

"It sounds worth the drive," Romilda said. "Let's go." She locked the door after them with her key and off they went to a night of casual eating between two friends.


	5. happiness hit her like a train on a track

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a lyric from the song "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + the Machine.

It was a gorgeous day outside, and across Britain families everywhere were taking advantage of that fact. The beaches were packed as everybody went there to enjoy the warm weather.

There were, perhaps, only four people who weren't at the ocean. They were still enjoying the weather, to be sure, but not at the beach. They were sitting outside on the patio at Harry Potter's house.

"What a gorgeous day," Romilda Vane said, looking at her boyfriend, Theodore Nott. An English teacher at the local high school, he had the summer off and was greatly enjoying that fact.

"It is indeed," Harry said, relaxing in a chair with a can of beer in his hand. His husband, Draco Malfoy, sat beside him, a tumbler glass of vodka untouched on the patio table.

"You know what this means?" Draco said. Nobody said anything as they waited for him to continue. He added, "It means that the next two weeks are going to be miserable, stormy, and dreary."

"So... back to usual?" Theodore quipped. There was a bowl of chips on the table; he leaned forward and took a handful, eating them one at a time. "Besides, Draco," he added, "you work in the government. That's what your next two weeks would look like anyways, even if the weather was nice!"

Everybody laughed and helped themselves to more food. Eventually, the bowls of snacks on the table became empty.

"I'll go refill these," Romilda volunteered, standing up. She took the bowls into the kitchen and began pouring food from the bags of snacks into them.

The bowls filled, Romilda straightened up and looked around. It was a gorgeous day and she got to spend time with her friends and her boyfriend. There was music playing softly in the background; indie rock, by the sound of it. On the whole, on so many ways, her life was so much better than it was when, a year and a half ago, she had sent in an application for a contest to meet and date Harry Potter.

Romilda had, for the most part, moved on from fanfiction, although she still kept in touch with the friends she had met through the community. People like Pansy Parkinson and Lavender Brown, who, while she no longer wrote in the Ron Weasley world, she still liked. Instead, she had focused on writing her own fiction, and, after a year of searching for a publisher, had finally signed an agreement with a smaller company. Her book was coming out at the end of the year, right in time for Christmas.

Yes, Romilda thought as she picked up the bowls and prepared to take them back outside, she could say, with all honesty, that she was, at this point in her life, well and truly happy. She had everything that anyone could possibly want: an amazing boyfriend, a stable job - she was, for the time being until her book came out, working full time at a major bookstore - lots of friends, and a great social life with those friends, and she was also volunteering at a women's domestic violence shelter in her spare time. She felt fulfilled.

As Romilda took the now-filled bowls outside and rejoined her friends on the patio, she reflected that, at this time two years ago, she would never had imagined this future for herself. Still, she thought, the unexpected was often the best path.


End file.
